Funding Amount: Up to $1,000 for individuals, more for departmental teams
Eligibility: Any faculty, staff, or graduate students with teaching and/or curricular responsibilities in lower-division courses at the university or with responsibilities for co-curricular programming.
Description: The Critical Thinking Redesign Grants (CTRs) support faculty, staff, or graduate students who wish to work on small-scale redesigns (e.g., assignments, activities, modules, etc.) with an eye toward revising these elements to enhance critical thinking. Grant recipients will attend a faculty development workshop in December. Recipients will also assess the effectiveness of their interventions and will report on the results.
How to Apply: Applicants should propose a small-scale redesign for a course or a program that will run in Spring 2024. We welcome individual or team proposals for CTRs.
Proposals should include: 1) your name(s); 2) department or unit; 3) course or program to be redesigned; 4) the number of students who will benefit from the proposed redesign; 5) a 200-word rationale explaining the role critical thinking currently plays in your course or program and how the redesign will help you to more intentionally teach and assess critical thinking; and 6) a brief statement from your department chair or immediate supervisor confirming support for your proposal.
Proposals should specifically discuss the ways in which the redesigned element will address two or more of the QEP Student Learning Outcomes:
- Conceptualize complex issues or problems
- Gather pertinent facts or ideas to explore complex issues or problems
- Interpret data and appraise evidence
- Distinguish, compare, or contrast diverse points of view and/or alternative conclusions
- Articulate personal insights about complex issues or problems
- Communicate a reasonable and effective argument, response, or conclusion (ThinkForward QEP, pp. 28-29)
- Applications for CTRs are due on Friday, October 13th, via email to Josh Eyler at jreyler@olemiss.edu.
Review Process: Applications will be reviewed by a subset of the QEP Advisory Board. Decisions will be communicated to all applicants by Friday, October 27th.
Important Information:
- December 2023: Grant recipients attend a faculty development workshop.
- May 2024: Recipients assess the results of their redesign and submit report.
- Recipients record revised outcomes, curriculum, assessment, and teaching notes throughout the process in a collaborative Teaching and Learning Guide.